CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; Too Busy Making Music To Worry About Stardom

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published: April 11, 2002

Tonight at Carnegie Hall, Seiji Ozawa will be the center of attention as he conducts his last performance in New York as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held for 29 years.

But the event is also a milestone for the pianist Randall Hodgkinson, who will make his first appearance as a concerto soloist with the Boston Symphony, playing the Bartok Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra. (Benjamin Pasternack will play the other piano solo part.)

Only a minority of the audience is likely to know Mr. Hodgkinson's name, though chamber music fans who attend the Bargemusic concerts in Brooklyn may have heard some of his regular performances there. The biggest rush of attention came 20 years ago when Mr. Hodgkinson took the top prize in the 1981 International American Music Competition sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Hall. It resulted in concerto appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic and other ensembles.

At 46 Mr. Hodgkinson may not be widely known. But he has long won critical praise for his musicianship, superb pianism and advocacy of contemporary music. By any measure, he plays the piano as well as it can be played. Yet he has no manager, no recording contract and no major presence on the touring soloist circuit.

Why do some splendid performers enjoy major international careers and other equally splendid performers do not? And how to explain why certain flashy performers have thriving international careers, while more substantive performers never seem to break out of a regional success?

There are no simple answers to these questions. It may come down to a certain temperament or drive that propels some artists to popular success. A marketable image, or just an inexplicable something that audiences connect with.

The artist makes choices, too. Sometimes it's a matter of principle, an uncompromising devotion to unusual repertory or contemporary music. Sustaining a busy touring career takes a kind of single-mindedness and athletic stamina that only certain performers have.

In a recent phone interview from his home in Sharon, Mass., Mr. Hodgkinson said that though such questions are intriguing, he hasn't spent much time thinking about them.

''With all modesty, I'm not intimidated by the fact that there are high-powered performers around playing big pieces with big orchestras,'' he said. ''I've been lucky while going along with my modest career to have had some of those experiences,'' like a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony.

''I'm extremely proud of what I've done,'' he said. ''I don't think of myself as a loser, and yet there is no other way to look at it, with the assumptions that we all have.''

Mr. Hodgkinson is too busy making music to ponder the state of his career. He is a member of the successful Boston Chamber Music Society. He recently became the pianist of the Gramercy Trio, and can be heard with that ensemble's cellist, Jonathan Miller, on an exciting recording of the Beethoven Sonatas for Cello and Piano on the Centaur label.

He plays two-piano concerts regularly with his wife, Leslie Amper. And he performs as a soloist with regional ensembles like the Reading Orchestra, Cape Anne Orchestra and Concord Orchestra in Massachusetts, and the Duluth Symphony in Minnesota that can earn him up to $3,000 for a pair of performances. At least these organizations give opportunities to interesting artists like Mr. Hodgkinson. Too often, second-tier orchestras define success as being able to attract some big-name soloist to play a war horse for a fee that puts a huge dent in operating budgets.

Mr. Hodgkinson also teaches, and includes among his pupils a roster of students at the New England Conservatory in Boston. His annual income is usually in the range of $55,000 (some 65 percent from playing, the rest from teaching), which most busy, regional freelance musicians would consider a decent income. Of course a star soloist can easily make that amount from a single concerto performance with a major orchestra.

Yet Mr. Hodgkinson is loath to complain. ''If I am growing as a musician,'' he said, ''if I learn something every other day, if I'm teaching well and practicing contemporary music that excites me, I feel it's a good year.'' His ''modest career,'' as he calls it, makes possible a healthy balance between musical life and family life with Ms. Amper and their two children.

The desire for balance is also cited by two performers noted for their solo work, the Geneva-born flutist Emmanuel Pahud and the American cellist Carter Brey, for their decisions to accept principal player positions in major orchestras. The public's assumption is that every member of a major orchestra is secretly yearning to burst out as a soloist. Not necessarily.

Mr. Pahud, now 32, was just 23 when he became principal flutist of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2000 he left the orchestra to pursue solo and chamber work and quickly established himself. A brilliant performer with movie-star charisma, he was a natural on the touring circuit.